[License-review] For approval: The Cryptographic Autonomy License (Beta 2)

[Pamela Chestek]

On 8/27/2019 9:14 PM, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
>
> Pam Chestek wrote:
> > The copyleft/source code requirements of GPL are implicated on
> distribution, not on display. It's not an issue under the GPL.
>
>  
>
> Pam, I remain confused. Perhaps I have not read and understood clearly
> the recent flood of emails about CPL. How does a display of code
> differ from a distribution of code? These are both distributions.
> Neither of those alternatives have anything to do with the display of
> a red box on your screen, unless you received _code_ to display a red
> box rather than an _order to use your own code_ to do the display.
>
You've misidentified the copyrighted work. The statutory term is
"computer program." You are describing it as limited to the code, but
the Copyright Office's view is that the screen displays are part of the
"computer program." Your distinction between the literal code on your
end and the instructions it sends to render a display is not one the
Copyright Office currently agrees with. I receive information generated
by your computer program that tells my computer, acting as a remote
terminal, what will appear on the screen. I have not received a tangible
copy of the computer program, so there is no distribution, but there has
been a display of the computer program. If you want to argue that the
Copyright Office's view on screen displays also means the software has
bee distributed, and therefore the requirements of the GPL must be met,
we can go there.

Let's move to the proprietary world for a moment. I have given you a
copy of a computer program with a browser-based graphical user
interface. I have licensed it to you for your sole use on a single
computer. You install it on a server and make it available to the world.
I hope we agree that there is a breach of the license that results in a
claim of copyright infringement. What is the infringed right? It's not
the rights of reproduction (you made the one copy you were licensed to
make) or distribution (because the public, interacting through a
browser, doesn't ever get a copy of the computer program). Public
performance? Possibly. Why is inconceivable that it's an infringement of
the right of display? Remote viewing, including on computers, is exactly
what the drafters of the Copyright Act of 1976 were thinking about when
they added display as an exclusive right of an author:

"Since … 1961, we have become increasingly aware of the enormous
potential importance of showing, rather than distributing, copies as a
means of disseminating an author's work. In addition to improved
projection equipment, the use of closed- and open-circuit television for
presenting images of graphic and textual material to large audiences of
spectators could, in the near future, have drastic effects upon
copyright owners' rights. Equally if not more significant for the future
are the implications of information storage and retrieval devices; when
linked together by communications satellites or other means, these could
eventually provide libraries and individuals throughout the world with
access to a single copy of a work by transmission of electronic images.
It is not inconceivable that, in certain areas at least, 'exhibition'
may take over from 'reproduction' of 'copies' as the means of presenting
authors' works to the public, and we are now convinced that a basic
right of public exhibition should be expressly recognized in the statute."

Supplementary Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General
Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law: 1965 Revision Bill, 89th Cong., 1st
Sess. 20 to 21 (House Comm. Print 1965).
>
>  
>
> I addressed this issue in OSL 3.0, which also deals with network
> distribution. The mere distribution of the _result_ of a program or
> the _data_ used to create that result_does not create a distribution
> of the program itself._ Is CPL different?
>
I don't see what you're referring to in the OSL, but what you've
described is a situation where you have simply defined "distribution" in
a way that may differ from the legal meaning in the Copyright Act, as
you are perfectly free to do. Nothing is coming to mind in the CAL as
defining terms differently from their meaning under the copyright law of
the enforcing jurisdiction. As an aside though, if the meaning of
"distribution" was clear under copyright law, why would you need to add
any proviso about it?

What is different about the CAL and the OSL is that the OSL only imposes
obligations on exercise of one of the exclusive rights of authors, the
right to create derivative works (1(c), 6). The GPL only imposed
obligations when the exclusive right of distribution has been exercised.
The CAL imposes obligations on the exercise of any exclusive right of an
author ("4. Conditions. If You exercise any permission granted by this
License ... You must comply with the following conditions ...").

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal.com
www.chesteklegal.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20190828/342b021d/attachment-0001.html>